m26

I'm not going to any school that will require me to wear a tie.

Congrats EdNerd! UNC has a lovely campus, with some great color. Hope you like it!

Thanks emg I figured it was a bit of a long shot, but its driving me crazy lol

Um, okay weird question. I seem to remember Penn opening a new facility recently, it had a lot of study space, I think it had something to do with interdisciplinary mingling, and I remember that it was very blue with a sort of '60s futuristic design ethic. Anybody know what I'm talking about? note: There's a 10% chance I imagined this, and a 40% chance this is at a different school.

I'm not so sure about that. I think they check for completion in the order they come in, so if it's not complete they email you and either put it at the back of the application queue or set it aside until you send in the materials to get complete. Then once it is complete, it only goes to the back of the completed files queue. And even then it won't get read until they start reviewing files, although in mid-January I would imagine they were starting. Not sure, but I think that's roughly how it works. Penn explains how they do it (albeit with rolling admissions) here and here.

mhmm

Yeah, same.

Just got a decision in EP after being complete 1/15. HE went complete two days later, so hoping to hear soon.

Maybe a professor at a top school with many years of experience/publications. I was a little surprised to realize entry-level tenure-track faculty (an absurdly difficult job to get) only make around 50k. Short term I want to do non-profit management or start my own. Long term, I want to do education law and eventually move into district admin or DOE.

Well there's always this. I had a brief fantasy where I got to do that, take two years to finish my EdM, then serve in the reserves. It was a nice fantasy, until I remembered a few unfortunate realities (need to apply yesterday, would need to be in BPFT shape, would need a clean medical history, would need to get into H, would need H to go along with everything). Oh well.

Was it in a different program?

Congrats!

100% going, no questions asked. Trying to research my other schools more to reduce my enthusiasm gap at the moment lol.

52% according to US News. Everyone on here looks really competitive. I think we'd make a good cohort-within-a-cohort.

Yeah exactly. Those were my weakest points, so I really wish I'd nailed the GRE. When the strongest part of your application is the least important part, it's time to worry lol.

Oh, lord, yeah. I started prepping my essay about a month and a half before the deadline (and already had 2 versions for other schools done), worked around the clock the week it was due, and still went to bed the night before it was due with literally not a single word on the page. I was so stressed. Ended up writing the entire thing on the 4th. So now I'm worrying my butt off about that, my recommendations, my resume, my "fit." Everything. I really threw everything together at the last minute because I had no idea I was going to do this in October. I'm actually a much better candidate now than I was even a month ago, so I'm really worried about it. Plus I keep stupidly perusing the GSE website, finding out awesome things like their Innovation Lab, and praying I didn't blow it by being behind the 8 ball. Oh, and I figured out how to use the results search. Found out my numbers twin got rejected last year. So I'm fairly disheartened. I'm also wishing I'd studied for the GRE. I was busy and wasn't thinking I'd be applying for any seriously competitive programs so I didn't do any prep. I know my qualitative stuff is probably weak, so I wish I put more effort into the quantitative factors. Oh well. Too late now.

Ahh, gotcha. Thanks. Been seeing that a lot but never heard the term before.

I did the same thing too! The 90 minutes I spent reading a math review before the test were the first math exposure I'd had in 5 years. I forgot the pythagorean theorem mid-test. It was awful lol.

What is a POI?

Any reason in particular? I learned my lesson this year. Apply way before Christmas break or apply afterwards. Applying right before adds a month of stress when little to no progress is being made on apps

Applied 12/15, complete 1/15... getting antsy!

Well if you get in it's better. Those thin envelopes are awful though.

I always feel vaguely optimistic, but when I get really enthusiastic about the program is when my mind goes into full-on panic mode haha. I, for one, was completely calm and reasonable and rational about this whole process until February, and now I'm rapidly becoming one of those high-strung prospies. Gah! I called admissions the other day, and they said I can send an updated resume to replace my old one, and they'll switch it if I'm not under review yet. I made the semifinals at Penn-Milken, which doesn't mean much but I'm tempted to put it on there and re-submit because my resume is so thin on directly education-y things. Any thoughts?

You all look like great applicants. Fingers crossed! I'm worried about fit, though. EPM is perfect for me as a career-changer with a lot of threads that I want to explore, but I'm not sure I have much interesting to offer Harvard, unfortunately. On an unrelated note, I saw on the blog that you can take courses at MIT and Tufts. HGSE's program is just off the charts amazing. Yeah, idk how I'm going to survive as a Yankee fan if I get in lol

Of the schools I've personally seen, (USF, UF, GT, Duke, UNC, NCSU, Georgetown, Maryland, WashU, Penn, Rochester, Cornell, Utah, Colorado), I'm partial to WashU. The buildings all match, the architecture is beautiful, and the setting is nice. From pictures it looks amazing in the snow. Penn has some beautiful buildings (Fisher Fine Arts Library, the quad, etc). Cornell's law library is gorgeous.